Phase Space

"Phase Space" - Workshop on Collisionless Gravitational Dynamics

The study of galaxies and their dark matter halo in phase space has become a fundamental tool for exploiting and interpreting modern astronomical surveys such as GAIA, the SDSS, the 2dF, or high energy astrophysics experiments, such as Fermi, PAMELA, HESS, etc.

Indeed, understanding the fine details of the dark matter distribution in phase space is essential both from the numerical and theoretical point of views in the framework of indirect dark matter detection in high energy astrophysics. In addition, the knowledge of peculiar motion of stars, combined for instance with their metallicity, can help to extract very precise pieces of information on the history of the dynamical structure of our galaxy and to constrain galaxy formation models in the Cold Dark Matter paradigm.

With the increasing available computational power, it becomes now possible considering a realistic numerical approach involving many physical processes at play over a large dynamical range. In particular, direct resolution of Vlasov-Poisson equations in 6D phase space has become now possible on Petaflop computers, as shown recently by recent calculations by plasma physicists.

The goal of this workshop is to discuss all these issues in a convivial atmosphere. The program will be composed of short talks followed by open discussions between dynamicists and computer scientists, astrophysicists and plasma physicists, in order to discuss for instance on how to combine new ensembles of observational data to exploit them in a dynamical context, or how to resolve numerically the dynamics of complex systems such as our galaxy and its halo in phase space.